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| Student enjoying white milk |
What happens when you
bring in three pediatricians in white lab coats, 391 cartons of free white
milk, and a group of enthusiastic parents with milk mustaches to an elementary
school?
On March 7th, 2012, the Lowell Elementary School in
Watertown, MA devoted an entire a day to promote the health benefits of white
milk. With the support of the school administration and Harvard Vanguard
Medical Associates (the local pediatrician office), the goal of Milk Awareness Day
was to help kids make healthy choices, starting with choosing low-fat, white
milk over flavored milk. A seemingly impossible task when almost 80% of the
kids buy flavored milk over white milk at lunch everyday.
It was going to take a lot of planning, coordination and creativity.
Here’s what happened:
“Let’s Talk Milk” School Assembly
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| Milk Day School Assembly |
Milk Day began with an assembly in the school’s library. Students
from grades PreK-5 gathered to hear three pediatricians from Harvard Vanguard
talk about the benefits of choosing pure white milk instead of flavored milk. The
kids were attentive as the doctors gave a presentation on the importance of
calcium and other essential nutrients and vitamins found in milk. Then came the
bait.
“Raise your hand if
you drink chocolate milk at lunch” asked Dr. Dan Slater. A sea of hands flew up
in the air.
Drs. Slater, Mitchell and Stepanian went on to explain the
effects of sugar and why consuming too much sugar is bad for kids’ health. But
how much sugar is in a carton of flavored milk? To demonstrate, they played a video
clip of sugar being poured into a school bus from Jamie Oliver’s Food
Revolution. Students and staff gasped as the bus began to bust at the seams
with sugar.
To further demonstrate sugar consumption, the pediatricians
had the students guess how many cups of sugar are consumed at the Lowell school
in one day. One by one, students came up to pour one cup of sand (representing
sugar from flavored milk) into a clear storage container. The room grew
increasingly agitated as over 18 kids gathered on the small stage.
“You guys drink 19 ½
cups of sugar more than you would if you drank regular white milk. That
converts to 4 ½ added pounds of fat. And that’s not healthy.”
Kids are sometimes told too much sugar is not good for you,
but it often doesn’t mean anything without the proper context. The Milk Day
assembly was a great opportunity for the school doctors to explain this in a
way kids could get and hopefully remember.
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| Harvard Vanguard doctors and students |
Lunch
At the end of the assembly, the various grades began their
lunch periods. Thanks to the generous support of Harvard Vanguard, children
were offered free white milk with lunch. In addition, milk mustaches and white
silicone bracelets with “MOO” imprinted on them were given to all the kids for
choosing white milk. Nearly all the kids grabbed white milk over the flavored
stuff. Only a handful of kids chose chocolate milk or water. Kids chose to show
off their white mustaches and bracelets. It. Was. Awesome.
Pledge & Photo Opp
After kids finished their lunches, they were encouraged to
sign a pledge to drink white milk and to have their pictures taken with milk
mustaches. Lunch period is usually boisterous time, but more so on this
particular day. Kids clambered to sign the pledge and showed off their milk
mustaches. By the end of all the lunch periods, it was difficult to find space
to scrawl a signature on the pledge. The goal was to make it a positive day. And
based on the mood at every lunch period, there was no doubt we had achieved
that goal.
And as a bonus, parent volunteers also collected the empty
milk cartons to be used later for planting seedlings later this month as part
of a wellness fair. How cool is that?
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| Principal Kaplan watching students sign pledge |
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| Students could not wait to sign pledge to drink white milk |
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| Milk Day was a hit with everyone |
But wait, there’s more work to be done!
Check back to read the final installment of my “Milk
Chronicles” after our follow-up meeting with the school principal later this
month. Wish us luck!
This post was
originally published at jamieoliver.com on April 20, 2012.
